Introduction

1. The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) protects the interests of rail and road users. We are improving the safety, value and performance of railways and roads, today and in the future. ORR want to better understand the interests of rail freight customers, balancing them with the interests of other users and with funders of the rail network.

Purpose 2. The freight customer panel will help to ensure that our policies and regulatory decisions take into account the commercial environment that freight customers work within. The freight customer panel will be part of our wider commitment to engage directly with freight customers. In addition to a panel we intend to hold an annual freight customer event and may hold other events where train operators and Network Rail will be present. All ORR engagement is intended to complement existing industry engagement.

3. This panel will provide a structured forum for engagement and panel members will assist us by contributing views, expressing opinions and advising us on freight customer interests or issues.

Membership 4. ORR’s panel will be made up of freight customers who represent a wide area of expertise and interest from across the rail freight community. A freight customer incorporates those with a direct interest in rail freight including purchasers of services and their representative bodies but not the operators of trains.

Meetings 5. We will hold one or two meetings a year, and we may hold other ad hoc meetings in response to demand or by virtue of ORR’s business need.

6. Panel members may be expected to read papers which may be circulated in advance. We will keep these to a minimum, however, to reflect our commitment to attendees to keep the meetings focused and efficiently run.

7. We will ask attendees to evaluate each meeting to assist us in improving the quality of our engagement.

8. Meetings will be chaired by ORR. We will meet reasonable travel costs.